Data Breaches Are Inevitable Due To Lack Of Resources

Following a series of high profile corporate data breaches, a new data security study found 63% of respondents sharing the belief that they cannot prevent such breaches.

Data breaches occur mainly due to mismanagement of information by organizations. This occurs through a mechanism, which exploits the fact that such information is usually beyond managerial control. This makes it all the more challenging to keep the information protected.

Released on August 31, 2006, a study, National Survey on the Detection and Prevention of Data Breaches compiled responses from 853 IT professionals ranging from senior executives to information security managers.

The percentage of security experts and executives who are convinced that they are incapable of preventing data breach is almost two-thirds, as reflected by the research carried out by the Ponemon Institute, a Mich-based privacy and information management research firm.

The study reveals security effectiveness and ownership costs acting as hurdles for solutions to prevent data breaches. Nearly 66% of respondents confirmed the use of hardware or software by their companies to help in detection and prevention of data breaches. However the remaining respondents revealed that the high costs prevented their companies from using such tools. Irrespective of the undeniable need, organizations blame excessive cost as the main reason deterring them from using leak prevention technologies with 35 percent of the view that leak prevention technologies are too expensive.

At the CIO level, a great deal of frustration is involved due to the sentiment that security responsibility should ideally be divided across the different tires of the management structure. Another concern pertains to the ability in understanding and implementing security policies. In the past it has happened that even if the culprit responsible for the breach is identified, they fail to enforce policies resulting in repeated mistakes by way of the users' actions defining the observed computing habits.

Regardless of the increase in attention to data security issues, huge gaps persist in corporate America's ability for effective protection of sensitive data. It is this lack of accountability apart from a lack of resources devoted to the problem that form the core of the problem.

Organizations need to invest in leading information leak prevention technology for automation of monitoring and enforcement. Doing so will ensure that their current resources are utilized to maximum advantage for better protection of information assets including data and intellectual property.

Related article: Data Theft Incidents Influence Consumers Adversely

» SPAMfighter News - 9/5/2006